Two former leather goods works, Wisemore

Summary

Two leather working factories of 1891, one by HH McConnal, both with twentieth century additions.

Reasons for Designation

The former Withers and Son and Samuel Llewellen leather working buildings on Wisemore, Walsall, two leather working factories dated to 1891, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* the buildings are notable for their large scale and industrial appearance; one of them designed by a known local architect;

* internally the long well-lit workshop rooms and survival of groups of fireplaces illustrate how leatherwork and associated metal fixtures were produced on site.

Historic interest:

* they have special interest for their use as leather workshops constructed during the peak of the industry for which Walsall is famous, and they are amongst very few such buildings surviving from this time;

* the additions and demolitions at the site tell the story of the rise and then decline of leather working in Walsall.

History

Walsall has a long history of metal working, and from at least the C16 the town was increasingly associated with production of bits, stirrups and fastenings for saddlery. Alongside this metal working, the trade in saddlery grew, and this (with broader leather working) became Walsall’s main industry, reaching its peak around the turn of the C20. The town is still a centre for leather working in the C21, and the tradition is reflected in the name of the town’s covered shopping centre, ‘The Saddlers Centre’, with Walsall Football Club also known as ‘The Saddlers’.

The two buildings described here are immediately north-east from the junction of Wisemore with Littleton Street West; both were built when Walsall’s leather working industry was at its height at the end of the C19. The buildings are understood to be contemporary with each other, with plans for the southern building (described as a factory and warehouse for Messrs Withers and Son) dated to 1891. The architect for the southern building was the Walsall based architect Henry Hill McConnal (1856-1908). The northern building was built for Samuel Llewellen, a manufacturer of strap leather goods.

The 1843 tithe map shows meadow and pasture land in the plots on which the leather working buildings were to be constructed. They were owned by Edward Littleton (Lord Hatherton, 1791-1863), after whom the street to the south is named. The first building on the site was a lime works, shown on the 1885 Ordnance Survey (OS) town plan, and extant until the 1975 map. Map regression shows the evolution of the leather working buildings on site, with them first appearing on the 1902 OS map, where they front Wisemore. Originally the two buildings were separate with a gap to the frontage, and the southern building appeared to incorporate the earlier lime works. By the time of the 1915 OS map the southern buildings have two new rear wings, and by the 1938 OS map, the gap between the buildings in the Wisemore street frontage is infilled, and there is expansion to the east. The site is shown at its fullest extent on the 1975 OS map, where there are further additions to the east. Subsequently, in advance of the widening of Littleton Street West, the lime works section to the south of the site and all the post-1938 map additions were demolished, as was the northern end of the Llewellen building.

Reflecting Walsall’s gradual transition from saddlery to lighter leather goods work in the early and mid-C20, the last leather working occupier of the Wisemore buildings was Gainsborough Handbags. The buildings fell out of use in the 1960s following their purchase for demolition by the council in advance of planned road widening. These demolitions didn’t go ahead, and in the 1980s the northern building was converted to house the town’s leather goods training centre, and the southern to house a new museum. The museum was officially opened in June 1988 by HRH The Princess Royal. An extension was added to the south end of the museum in the mid-1990s. In 2026, the buildings house the Walsall Leather Museum and Walsall College’s Music Academy (Walsall College Broadway Campus).

Details

Two leather working factories of 1891, one by HH McConnal, which has C20 additions.

PLAN: the northern building is ‘L’ shaped, the southern has a rectangular main range with three rear wings at right-angles to it.

MATERIALS: brick and terracotta-brick walls with slate roofs.

EXTERIOR: the northern Llewellen building is linked to the southern Withers and Son building by a single-storey section that dates to the 1980s and this 1980s section is not included in the List entry. All roofs are pitched with gable ends. Walls are in English garden wall bond of three courses of stretchers between each header course. Openings are under double segmental arch lintels. Doors are of narrow timber planks with top-lights. The hopper windows are metal with square lights and round heads. Cills to the southern building are of two courses of plinth bricks, the northern building’s windows are over string courses. Moulded string courses run at cill level below first and second floor windows, with the southern building having an additional string course above the ground floor lintels. The southern building has a base of six courses of blue bricks topped with a course of blue plinth bricks. All the chimney stacks are brick with oversailing courses near their tops.

The main elevations of both buildings face west to Wisemore, their plan following the slight curve of the road. The northern building survives as two sections representing what remains of the Samuel Llewellen works; a seven bay three-storey section adjoined to the south by a two-storey section of three bays. The three-storey section has a window to each floor and bay. At ground floor level the two-storey section has a double door to the north and single window to the south. The lintels over these openings are of long wedge-shaped bricks capped with a row of moulded bricks in a segmental arch to the door and round arch to the window. At first-floor level the windows have stone cills, which interrupt a moulded platband. There is a dentil course at eaves level.

South of the two-storey element is a single-storey linking section constructed in the late-1980s, which is not included in this List entry. Adjoining this link further south is the former Withers and Son works, a long three-storey range in two sections, with its second floor faced in terracotta bricks. The northern of its two sections is of eight evenly spaced bays with a window to each bay in each floor. The southern section is of seven bays with two doorways centrally to the ground floor with two windows to the north and three windows to the south of the entrances. The windows to the first and second floors are grouped in a 1-2-1-2-1 rhythm.

From the south can be seen the 1990s museum extension (not included in this List entry) above which, to the west is the double gable end of the Withers and Son works, and to the east the building’s early C20 rear wing extension. There are three further eastern wings moving north up the rear of the buildings, all in brick and typically with bays defined by metal windows similar to those on the Wisemore elevations. The southern three rear wings are to the Withers and Son works, the northern to the Llewellen works. The southernmost two wings of the Withers and Son building are two-storey and early-C20, its northern wing is three-stories and from 1891, as is the single rear wing of the Llewellen building. The east elevations of both buildings are the gable ends of the rear wings and the rears of the main ranges, again characterised by vertical bays defined by windows. When viewed from the north, the site shows the truncated remains of the Llewellen works, rendered to this elevation, then the north sides of the various rear wings.

INTERIOR: the interior of the site is divided between the southern part in use by the Walsall Leather Museum, and the northern part used by Walsall College. The college occupies the whole of the Llewellen building and extends south into the spaces that comprise the northern four bays of the former Withers and Son works (except at first floor level where that room is used by the museum). The part of the site in use by the college has had some stud wall partitions inserted. Throughout both buildings, interior walls are painted brick, and there are late-C20 suspended ceilings. There are occasional fireplaces and chimney breasts in brick. Doors are generally original (except where in later C20 partitions) and are of timber planks. Staircases have turned balusters. Floor surfaces are carpeted or laminated, though in the museum areas to the ground floor some rooms have C20 quarry tiles, and on upper floors some rooms have exposed floorboards.

In the eastern room of the southern of the two early-C20 rear wings to the Withers and Son building are two pairs of brick fireplaces, showing that this was an area where metalworking was carried out. On the second floor of the Withers and Son building king post roof trusses are exposed. On the ground floor of the Llewellen building the northernmost room fronting Wisemore has a partially infilled arch to its eastern wall. The archway now contains a C20 door through to the north-eastern room, the north side of which is partitioned by an internal brick wall punctured by three arches. The room directly above this on the first floor has the same floorplan and a three-arched internal wall.

Sources

Books and journals
Glasson, M, Saddlery For All Nations: The work of the Walsall Leather Centre in Social History Curators' Group Journal, Vol. 17, (1990), 56-7

Other
1:2500 Ordnance Survey Map, published 1902
1:500 Scale Ordnance Survey Town Plan, published 1885
IR29 Tithe Commission and successors: Tithe Apportionments, The National Archives ref IR 29/32/219, Walsall Parish Tithe records 1843
Wolverhampton and Walsall Historic Environment Record number 8813: Leather Centre Museum; Wisemore; Walsall

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